Supplying The Canadian Nuclear Horn (Dan 7:7)

Final shipment of weapons-grade uranium due at Ontario facility this year

The United States has approved what is expected to be the last shipment of weapons-grade uranium to be sent to Canada for the production of medical isotopes.

FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo

Chalk River Laboratories in eastern Ontario produces most of the medical isotopes used across North America. A final shipment of highly enriched uranium will be transported from Tennesee to Chalk River, Ont., by the end of this year.

 

By: Joanna Smith Ottawa Bureau reporter, Published on Mon Jun 29 2015

OTTAWA—The United States has approved what is expected to be the last shipment of weapons-grade uranium to be sent to Canada for the production of medical isotopes.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission signed an export licence June 23 to transport 8.1 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Oak Ridge, Tenn., along a secret route to Chalk River, Ont., by the end of this year.

There, for what is expected to be the last time, the uranium will be used to produce target material for the aging National Research Universal (NRU) reactor to irradiate in order to produce medical isotopes used in nuclear medicine.

“The game is over for Canada’s unnecessary and irresponsible use of bomb-grade uranium to produce medical isotopes. Better late than never,” Alan Kuperman, coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement Monday.

THE LAST SHIPMENT

Kuperman has long been tracking the controversial U.S. exports of highly enriched uranium to Canada.

The Conservative government has committed to shutting down the routine production of medical isotopes at the NRU by Oct. 31, 2016, with the possibility of the NRU retaining licences to operate until March 2018 in case of unexpected shortages. The isotope has a very short lifespan, causing it to disappear within a day of being generated and so it cannot be stockpiled.

Kuperman said that based on his analysis of past usage, the newly approved shipment should last until production shuts down.

WHAT IT MEANS

The shipment of highly enriched uranium north of the border has long been controversial, with anti-proliferation critics urging the U.S., which was always largely dependent on the Canadian supply of medical isotopes, to pressure Canada to convert to low-enriched uranium, which is safer.

Kuperman said Canada reneged on a pledge to convert to low-enriched uranium made in the 1990s — when it first announced its failed plan to build two new reactors that would have replaced the NRU.

Kuperman said “it’s almost fateful” that, with the pending closure of the NRU, Canada is finally abandoning highly enriched uranium.

AROUND THE WORLD

The Chalk River reactor, which began operating in 1957, is one of five major producers of molybdenum-99, which decays into the technetium-99m isotope used in 85 per cent of nuclear medicine procedures such as bone scans and other diagnostic tests.

The other reactors, in Australia, South Africa, Belgium and the Netherlands, have either already begun, or will soon begin, using only low-enriched uranium.

“Canada is the only one of the big producers that did not commit or make efforts to convert its reactor-based production from (highly enriched uranium) to (low-enriched uranium),” Kuperman said.

THE FUTURE OF CANADIAN ISOTOPES

Pending approval by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Ltd., the subsidiary of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited that operates the NRU, will keep the reactor on standby until March 2018 in case of unexpected shortages in global supply.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories did not respond to requests for comment.

Other sources, such as a cyclotron operated by TRIUMF, Canada’s national nuclear laboratory for particle and nuclear physics at the University of British Columbia, are in the works, but even that project would produce only about 20 per cent of the Canadian supply.

“We remain really quite concerned about the medical isotopes supply,” said Dr. Andrew Ross, president of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine.

The Shia Sickle Will Grow (Dan 8:8)

A Nuclear Nightmare for Lebanon
A deal with Iran would be a boon for Hezbollah and a disaster for my country.

TERROR BOOST: Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard celebrate a missile launch. Their country stands to make a windfall of up to $150 billion from a deal with the U.S. PHOTO: MOSTAFA QOTBI/IRNA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By AHMAD EL-ASSAAD
June 29, 2015 2:25 p.m. ET

Ever since it entered the Syrian civil war, the Iranian-funded Lebanese-Shiite terror outfit Hezbollah has suffered tremendously and in many different ways. Over the past two years, more than 1,000 Hezbollah fighters have died in that war, and the Lebanese people’s resentment toward the group has increased. Lebanese Shiites who don’t belong to Hezbollah have also been targeted for scorn by the rest of the country, even though many of us oppose its vicious ways.

Long gone are the days when a large portion of the Lebanese population believed that Hezbollah is there to protect them and Lebanon. The mask has fallen off. Most Lebanese now see Hezbollah for what it is: a militia that works for the Iranian regime and must therefore obey Tehran’s orders. And to quiet the disenchanted voices, to make them dare not speak out, especially in the Shiite areas, Hezbollah has become more oppressive than ever.

The war in Syria has been a big financial burden on Hezbollah as well. The cash coming from Tehran is not what it used to be. In many Shiite neighborhoods, Hezbollah is asking people for donations. This has weakened the image of Hezbollah, as people see that its coffers are no longer filled as they once were.

Most young men join Hezbollah not because they believe in its talk about “resistance,” but simply because it’s the only option for the poor, unemployed and uneducated Shiites to earn a few hundred dollars a month.

The source of Hezbollah’s financial troubles is obvious: The Iranian regime has spent exorbitant sums trying to support and sustain the Assad regime in Damascus. With a population of approximately 80 million, Iran’s gross domestic product is only $369 billion. The United Arab Emirates, by comparison, with a population of nine million, has a GDP of $402 billion.

Yet despite its penurious position, Iran continues to ignore its domestic and social problems. Instead, just like the old Soviet Union, it is stretching its influence throughout the Middle East as if it were an economic powerhouse, not an economic disaster.

Furthermore, Tehran views Hezbollah’s results over the past 33 years as such a success that it is now franchising it. From Hamas in the Palestinian territories to the Sadrists in Iraq to the Houthis in Yemen, these proxy terrorist organizations are an exact replica of Hezbollah.

Now the Obama administration is negotiating a flawed nuclear deal with the Iranian regime that will see Tehran get a windfall of up to $150 billion. With so much cash on hand, Tehran would surely create new Hezbollah franchises elsewhere in the Middle East and order all these radical proxy groups to wage even more wars in the region.

At the very least, Tehran would be eager to give a good boost to its pride and joy—Hezbollah—and help it buy its way out of the problems it is facing in Lebanon now.

I recently met in Washington D.C. with senators, members of Congress and think-tank analysts. When I shared my worries with those close to the Obama administration, the response was, “Let’s get a deal now on the nuclear issue and then we’ll work out a plan on how to stand up to this Iranian invasion of the Middle East.”

When I pressed them further on the matter, I got no answers. What kind of plan are we talking about? Who would implement such a plan and confront the various Iranian proxy groups? Would the U.S. be willing to put American boots on the ground?

It has become clear to me that there is no plan. At best, if there will ever be a plan, it will be as successful as the one we see unfolding today against Islamic State. There is no doubt that a nuclear deal with Iran would be a nightmare for my beloved Lebanon and for all the other countries in the Middle East that are controlled, or could be controlled, by Iranian proxy groups.

With this deal, my Lebanon won’t be able to free itself in the foreseeable future from the control of Hezbollah. It will never again be the Switzerland of the Middle East, will never prosper and thrive again like it did in the 1960s and early ’70s. To those who say that this nuclear deal is a recipe for peace, I say that this deal is an invitation for more wars in the Middle East.

Mr. El-Assaad is chairman of the Lebanese Option Party.

The two horns of prophecy (Dan 8:3)

v

Iran’s Nukes are Iraq’s Moment of Truth
06.28.15 – 5:00 PM | Michael Rubin

Iranian influence in Iraq has grown greatly since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Shortly after I returned to Iraq in July 2003, I had driven with Iraqi friends down to see the marshes which Saddam Hussein had ordered drained in order to try to extinguish the Marsh Arabs’ thousands-year way of life. On our way back, we stopped at a roadside fruit and drink stand on the outskirts of Kut. Peeking out from behind a bunch of bananas was a portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s revolutionary leader. A month later, I stopped unannounced at a tribal leader’s house in al-Amara. When I had scheduled a visit with him through local Coalition Provisional Authority officials a week before, he was obsequious to the Americans; when I came back unannounced, there in his reception room where he had served us tea a week before was a huge portrait of Khomeini. Then, of course, there was the time in Baghdad when I was visiting an Iraqi politician. It was getting late and so I took his offer to sleep on a couch in his living room rather than traverse Baghdad after curfew. On the other couch when I woke up? An Iranian official, who had even more reason to avoid getting caught by the American army breaking curfew. And then, there was the time when I was exploring Basra in December 2003. I stayed at a local hotel, and was wandering along the trash-strewn local canals which decades before had made Basra the “Venice of the Gulf.” Sharing the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) office was Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s chief terrorist proxy.
The irony here is that, for all the attempts Iran made to infiltrate Iraq — successfully in some cases — most Iraqi Shi’ites resented them or soon came to due to the Iranian leadership’s arrogance and its deaf ear to Iraqi nationalism. The bulk of the Iraqi Army at the front lines during the Iran-Iraq War were Shi‘ite conscripts who fought honorably to defend Iraq; they neither defected to Iran out of sectarian loyalty nor were they in position to question the justice of a war which Saddam Hussein started. On January 6, Iraqi Shi‘ites alongside Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Sunnis commemorate Iraqi Army Day, celebrating the institution, not the previous regime that often abused it. Within hours after the war began, Iran violated an agreement struck between its UN ambassador (now Foreign Minister and chief negotiator) Mohammad Javad Zarif and American diplomats Ryan Crocker and Zalmay Khalilzad and inserted a number of proxies and its own men into Iraq. One of their missions was to seize personnel records in the Defense Ministry and then proceed to hunt down and kill any veteran pilot from the Iraq-Iran War on the assumption that they had bombed Iran. The Iranian Red Crescent participated in this assassination wave, providing yet one more reason why the Iranian government and its NGOs should not be taken at their word.

Ever since President Barack Obama ordered a complete withdrawal from Iraq in order to fulfill a 2007 campaign pledge, Iranian influence has grown in Iraq. The reason for this has less to do with the hearts of Iraqis than their minds: Because they could no longer balance American and Iranian influence and demands in order to preserve their independent space, they needed to make greater accommodation to Tehran. It’s one thing to push back on over-the-top Iranian demands when several thousand American troops are garrisoned around the country. It is quite another to tell Qods Force leader Qassem Soleimani to shove his demands where the sun don’t shine when he has the wherewithal to kill anyone who stands in his way and every Iraqi regardless of sect or ethnicity knows that the United States really does not have their back. Hence, Iraq allowed some Iranian overflights to support and supply Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria (the same regime to which Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry now appear prepared to accommodate). And Iraqis also traveled to Syria to support the Assad regime against Jabhat al-Nusra and/or the Islamic State (again, which the United States now appears to be doing, having demanded that ‘moderate’ Syrians whom U.S. forces train not target Assad). More recently, Americans have criticized the role that Iranian-backed militias play in the Iraqi security forces. This concern is certainly warranted, although every time a politician, journalist, or think-tank analyst recommends arming Sunni tribes directly, they simply drive the Iraqi public away from moderates like Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has been solicitous of American interests and concerns, and into the hands of harder-line pro-Iranian politicians.

So what can Iraq do to signal that it is not simply an Iranian proxy like so many of its critics say? Taking a public stance against the Iranian nuclear program would be a good first step. Under no circumstances, can the Iranian nuclear program be an Iraqi interest. Forget the Washington talking points: Everyone in the Persian Gulf, Arabs and Persians alike, know that the deal currently being finalized secures a path to an Iranian nuclear breakout. They also have a far more realistic assessment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) than the Obama administration. Not only is it unlikely that the IRGC will abide by any agreement, but it is also likely that if Iran does acquire a nuclear capability, it will find itself so overconfident behind its own nuclear deterrence that it will further erode Iraqi sovereignty.

Iran may not like Iraq siding, in this instance, with almost every member of the Gulf Cooperation Council but Oman (which feigns neutrality), but certainly it must expect that any Iraqi government — even one which reflects the Shi‘ite majority of Iraq — will stand up for Iraqi national interests and oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions with the same cautionary statements heard from Saudi, Emirati, and Kuwaiti diplomats and officials.

The Ramapo Fault Line of the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

A Look at the Tri-State’s Active Fault Line

Monday, March 14, 2011

By Bob Hennelly

The Ramapo Fault is the longest fault in the Northeast that occasionally makes local headlines when minor tremors cause rock the Tri-State region. It begins in Pennsylvania, crosses the Delaware River and continues through Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Passaic and Bergen counties before crossing the Hudson River near Indian Point nuclear facility.

In the past, it has generated occasional activity that generated a 2.6 magnitude quake in New Jersey’s Peakpack/Gladstone area and 3.0 magnitude quake in Mendham.

But the New Jersey-New York region is relatively seismically stable according to Dr. Dave Robinson, Professor of Geography at Rutgers. Although it does have activity.

“There is occasional seismic activity in New Jersey,” said Robinson. “There have been a few quakes locally that have been felt and done a little bit of damage over the time since colonial settlement — some chimneys knocked down in Manhattan with a quake back in the 18th century, but nothing of a significant magnitude.”

Robinson said the Ramapo has on occasion registered a measurable quake but has not caused damage: “The Ramapo fault is associated with geological activities back 200 million years ago, but it’s still a little creaky now and again,” he said.

“More recently, in the 1970s and early 1980s, earthquake risk along the Ramapo Fault received attention because of its proximity to Indian Point,” according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website.

Historically, critics of the Indian Point Nuclear facility in Westchester County, New York, did cite its proximity to the Ramapo fault line as a significant risk.

In 1884, according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website, the  Ramapo Fault was blamed for a 5.5 quake that toppled chimneys in New York City and New Jersey that was felt from Maine to Virginia.

“Subsequent investigations have shown the 1884 Earthquake epicenter was actually located in Brooklyn, New York, at least 25 miles from the Ramapo Fault,” according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website.

The Hypocrisy Of Babylon The Great (Ezekiel 17)

US approach toward Iran, hypocritical: Mark Glenn

Sun Jun 28, 2015 4:6PM

 

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei addressing Iran’s top officials during a meeting in Tehran on June 23, 2015. (leader.ir photo)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Glenn, political commentator in Idaho, to discuss the remarks made by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, slamming the US and its elements for conducting terrorist attacks against Iranians in the past.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: With regards to the Iranian Leader’s speech about the West hosting anti-Iran terrorists, can you explain for us the amount of hypocrisy Europe and the US is engaged in and where will such hypocrisy lead to?

Glenn: Well I think that it is mountainous the size of the hypocrisy here. The fact that the United States is making the pretenses of negotiating with Iran in what appears to be an act of good faith but at the same time has removed this one particular group the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, which was listed on the US State Department list of dangerous terrorist organizations, removed them despite the fact that the overwhelming evidence is that this is still a terrorist group, despite the fact that it may not have the manpower or the funding and the strength that it had in years past when it assisted Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.

Nevertheless, the fact that the US would be cozying up and playing kissy-face with a very dangerous group, a cult of terrorists, at a time when the United States is making pretenses of negotiating with Iran, in addition to the fact as you said that the United States is constantly wagging her finger in the face of the world and lecturing the rest of the world on human rights and terrorism just underscores why the Supreme Leader’s statements are one hundred percent correct that you cannot trust America, you cannot trust the West. The drive to destroy Iran and to undo the revolution of 1979 is just as strong today as it was over 33 years ago when it originally took place.

Press TV: How much are the people of the West aware of such hypocrisy?

Glenn: Well, the people of the West do not even … if you were to ask the average American, if they ever heard of the MEK or MKO or Mujahedin-e-Khalq or these other groups that the United States has been funding now for not just for years but for decades, they would know nothing about this to their own detriment because the same group – the Mujahedin-e-Khalq – that has been listed as a terrorist group, now they are free to travel and to raise money for all of their operations and we can be rest assured that they will be put to use against Iran again, that they will be responsible for blowing things up and for killing people because at the end of the day this is what America and Israel are ought to do which is to destabilize Iran as a precursor to what they hope would be the Persian Spring that would unseat the present regime in power there.

Press TV: And can these terrorists be brought to justice?

Glenn: Well, they are going to be brought to justice but unfortunately it is going to have to come through other means other than the West or any western institution because all of these institutions in the West are firmly under the thumb of Israel. Israel is a terrorist nation that has engaged in thousands of war crimes. Has she ever been brought to justice for any of them? No. The United States has killed millions of people in the Middle East, blatant war crimes. Has the United States ever been brought to justice? No.

So unfortunately it is going to take another body, it is going to take another avenue to do this. The Iranians are possibly working closely with the Russians and with the Syrians and other world powers that have had enough of all of this warmongering and injustice. Perhaps they should start their own body of justice that will do the work that the International Criminal Court (ICC) seems to be unwilling to do.

AHK/HMV

Questions of Iran’s Past Nuclear Program (Dan 8:4)

 

Unsolved mystery: Possible military aspects of Iran’s atomic past

VIENNA, June 28 | By Shadia Nasralla

 

As nuclear talks with Iran approach a Tuesday deadline, some Western diplomats say questions about the country’s atomic past ought to be resolved before sanctions can be lifted.

Although Iran has not broken any terms of a 2013 interim deal, the U.N.’s nuclear agency has repeatedly asked Iran to cooperate faster with its investigation into possible military dimensions of the country’s atomic programme.

Below are the key unanswered questions raised by the IAEA, which mostly refer to activities that took place before 2003.

BACKGROUND

Iran acquired some enrichment knowledge from Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic weapons programme, who confessed to providing assistance to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

Some intelligence also came from a laptop smuggled out of Iran.

Iran says all of the alleged evidence is forged and dismisses any charges that it was attempting to develop nuclear weapons. However, the IAEA has said the information it has received on potential military aspects of the programme is, overall, credible and that it takes nothing at face value.

UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS

* Using cover companies for the procurement of dual-use equipment and material usable in a nuclear bomb but with civilian applications as well. This includes high-speed electronic switches, high-speed cameras and radiation measurement equipment.

* The acquisition of nuclear material, for example a uranium source for enrichment, and efforts to conceal activities involving such material.

* Possession of documents detailing how to convert uranium ore into metal and how to produce hemispherical enriched uranium metallic components which can be used in a bomb.

* The development of exploding bridge wire detonators, whose explosion times can be set to a very high degree of precision. Such precision detonators are crucial for timing the explosion of a nuclear weapon. Iran has said it needed such technology for its oil sector, according to diplomats, who also say there is no peaceful application for the degree of precision of this kind of detonator.

* Design information for a “multi-point initiation system,” technology to synchronize detonators used in some atomic bombs.

* Hydrodynamic experiments to assess how specific materials react under high pressure as in a nuclear blast. According to some information given to the IAEA by member states, an explosives chamber for such experiments might have been located at the Parchin complex near Tehran, a military site the agency has repeatedly urged Iran to grant it access to.

* Calculations on neutron behaviour that the IAEA has said has no clear civilian application. Iran has provided some fresh information on these calculations in recent weeks, but not enough to allow a breakthrough in the probe.

* Neutron initiator technology which the IAEA has said “could produce a burst of neutrons suitable for initiating a fission chain reaction,” as would be needed for an atomic bomb detonation.

* Tests to see whether high-tech detonators worked when triggered remotely from a long distance, also potentially relevant to a nuclear weapon.

* Engineering studies into missile payloads and their behaviour when launched. The IAEA has described these studies as “highly relevant to a nuclear weapon programme.”

* Work on the development of a firing system that would enable a missile payload to explode both in the air or upon impact.

* Indications that all the above mentioned areas were organised by a structured management and command chain under the Ministry of Defence Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL).

For the IAEA’s full technical annex on these issues, click here
(Reporting By Shadia Nasralla)

Iran Deal Likely Delayed (Ezekiel 17)

Iran Nuclear Talks: ‘Major Differences’ Remain

By Reuters 6/28/15 at 9:29 AM

 

From left, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (second from right) at a hotel in Vienna, Austria on June 28, 2015. Carlos Barria/Reuters

 

VIENNA (Reuters) – The six world powers seeking to negotiate an historic agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear program plan to carry on negotiating beyond a Tuesday deadline, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was to leave Vienna and return to Tehran for consultations with the country’s leadership on the state of negotiations, Iran said.

Officials from both sides said big differences still remained.

European Union foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini said earlier on Sunday it was not impossible to get an accord by the self-imposed deadline but that a few extra days may be needed.

Foreign ministers from the negotiating countries were gathering in Vienna on Sunday to assess where the talks stood.

They expected them to spill over into July.

“Zarif will return to Tehran tonight and will come back to Vienna tomorrow,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency said, citing an unnamed Iranian official.

An Iranian official told Reuters that Zarif would “consult with the leadership” over the talks inVienna.

The U.S. official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Washington was not troubled by Zarif’s decision to return to Tehran overnight, saying it was always expected that ministers would come and go from Vienna as the talks heated up.

The negotiations aim to limit Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of U.S., European Union and United Nations sanctions on Tehran.

The United States, Israel and some Western nations fear that Iran has been trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, but Tehran says its program is for peaceful purposes only.

The main differences are on the pace and timing of sanctions relief for Iran and on the nature of monitoring mechanisms to ensure Tehran does not cheat on any agreement.

U.S. and European negotiators also want to ensure there is a mechanism for restoring sanctions if Tehran fails to meet its commitments under any future accord.

In November, the seven nations involved in the talks set a late March deadline for a framework agreement, which they ultimately reached on April 2, and a June 30 deadline for a comprehensive deal.

Highlighting how much work remains, British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said on arrival in Vienna that major challenges remained, including on the parameters already agreed in April.

“There are a number of different areas where we still have major differences of interpretation in detailing what was agreed in Lausanne,” Hammond told reporters.

“There is going to have to be some give or take if we are to get this done in the next few days,” he said. “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

In addition to Britain, Iran and the United States, the talks include China, France, Germany and Russia.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said too many concessions were being made to Tehran.

“We see before our very eyes a stark retreat from the red lines that the world powers set themselves only recently, and publicly,” said Netanyahu, whose country is generally believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal.

“There is no reason to hasten into signing this bad deal, which is getting worse by the day.”

Authorities Expecting The Sixth Seal? (Rev 6:12)

US Raises Threat of Quake but Lowers Risk for Towers
New York Times

Earthquake!

By SAM ROBERTS
JULY 17, 2014

Here is another reason to buy a mega-million-dollar apartment in a Manhattan high-rise: Earthquake forecast maps for New York City that a federal agency issued on Thursday indicate “a slightly lower hazard for tall buildings than previously thought.”

The agency, the United States Geodetic Survey, tempered its latest quake prediction with a big caveat.

“The eastern U.S. has the potential for larger and more damaging earthquakes than considered in previous maps and assessments,” the agency said, citing the magnitude 5.8 quake that struck Virginia in 2011.

Federal seismologists based their projections of a lower hazard for tall buildings — “but still a hazard nonetheless,” they cautioned — on a lower likelihood of slow shaking from an earthquake occurring near the city, the type of shaking that typically causes more damage to taller structures.

“The tall buildings in Manhattan are not where you should be focusing,” said John Armbruster, a seismologist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. “They resonate with long period waves. They are designed and engineered to ride out an earthquake. Where you should really be worried in New York City is the common brownstone and apartment building and buildings that are poorly maintained.”

Mr. Armbruster was not involved in the federal forecast, but was an author of an earlier study that suggested that “a pattern of subtle but active faults makes the risk of earthquakes to the New York City area substantially greater than formerly believed.”

He noted that barely a day goes by without a New York City building’s being declared unsafe, without an earthquake. “If you had 30, 40, 50 at one time, responders would be overloaded,” he said.

The city does have an earthquake building code that went into effect in 1996, and that applies primarily to new construction.

A well-maintained building would probably survive a magnitude 5 earthquake fairly well, he said. The last magnitude 5 earthquake in the city struck in 1884. Another is not necessarily inevitable; faults are more random and move more slowly than they do in, say, California. But he said the latest federal estimate was probably raised because of the magnitude of the Virginia quake.

“Could there be a magnitude 6 in New York?” Mr. Armbruster said. “In Virginia, in a 300 year history, 4.8 was the biggest, and then you have a 5.8. So in New York, I wouldn’t say a 6 is impossible.”

Mr. Armbruster said the Geodetic Survey forecast would not affect his daily lifestyle. “I live in a wood-frame building with a brick chimney and I’m not alarmed sitting up at night worried about it,” he said. “But society’s leaders need to take some responsibility.”

Playing The Last Chess Match (Genesis 28)

Buckling to the mullahs: Counting the many dangers in Obama’s approach to the Iran nuclear deal

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, June 28, 2015, 5:00 AM

 

 This is the week Barack Obama is scheduled to make a go or no-go call on the most fateful international agreement of his presidency. His judgment will determine how easily Iran can acquire a nuclear weapon.

It is crucial to understand that Obama is not pressing Iran to abandon the covert and illegal atomic program by which the mullahs plan to dominate the region.

The President long ago conceded to the Iranians that he wanted only to contain their ambitions for a period of time — and offered to pay a recklessly dangerous price to get them to promise even that much.

Because Obama fancies that he can police with certainty the internal machinations of the world’s most duplicitous regime — a government whose leader vows that nuclear inspections on military bases will be forbidden — the President toys with lifting the economic sanctions that brought the mullahs to a table across which the parties two months ago supposedly nailed down a “framework” that the two sides now interpret as differently as night and day.

A President of sterner stuff and clearer vision would, even at this late date, declare Iran guilty of deal-breaking conduct.

In word and deed, Obama acts as though the radical Islamist, terror-exporting state were actually led by rational men who merely await the release of $140 billion as the catalyst for membership in the community of nations. Dream on and enter a nightmare.

As one for instance, former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has written that Obama seems poised to give Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a pass on applying the massive infusion of cash as a force multiplier for conventional terror.

Despite economic sanctions targeted strictly at the mullahs’ terrorist activities — as opposed to their nuclear weaponry — Iran’s documented history of Islamist violence spans six U.S. Presidents and includes serving as the primary banker for Hezbollah and Hamas, supplying explosives to kill U.S. troops during the Iraq War, smuggling Al Qaeda warriors into Syria and abetting the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.

While the U.S. Treasury vows to crack down on Iran’s terror-funding if and when Obama lifts sanctions, once in Iranian channels, that $140 billion in assets will be untraceable.

Still worse, Obama seems ready to turn his back on Iranian atrocities against the American citizens and soldiers who have won court judgments against the Islamic Republic for the 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. Khamenei gets $140 billion in blood money and property. The victims and families are in danger of getting zilch.

As for the terms of the nuclear deal, a seasoned group of national security experts, both Democrat and Republican, and including some former members of the Obama administration, have warned the President that the International Atomic Energy Agency must:

Have power to inspect all Iranian nuclear sites (a demand rejected by Khamenei), to interview Iranian scientists about past nuclear military program (a demand rejected by Khamenei) and to put limits on the centrifuges that enrich uranium to weapons grade (a demand rejected by Khamenei).

Finally, here’s the most horrifying expert opinion about how close Iran will be to producing a bomb as a so-called threshold nuclear power.

Obama scoffed when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran could “break out” to building a bomb within three months. The President said the world would have a year to stop the mullahs. Then Obama admitted that Netanyahu had been right about being on the brink.

Now, Alan J. Kuperman, coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin, has checked all of Obama’s plans, safeguards and the nuclear materials and equipment the President plans to leave under the mullahs’ control in order to determine whether Obama would give the world one year’s breathing room.

Here’s what Kuperman wrote in The New York Times:

“Unfortunately, that claim (of one year) is false, as can be demonstrated with basic science and math. By my calculations, Iran’s actual breakout time under the deal would be approximately three months — not over a year. Thus, the deal would be unlikely to improve the world’s ability to react to a sudden effort by Iran to build a bomb.”

All evidence indicates that a Strangelovian mania has caused Obama to lose touch with the safety of the world, far beyond Israel and the rest of the Middle East.

Save The Oil And The Wine (Revelation 6:6)

How an Iran nuclear deal would impact oil prices

By Nick Cunningham, Oilprice.com
June 27, 2015

A deal stopping Iran’s nuclear program and lifting Western sanctions on the country would immediately push down oil prices, writes Nick Cunningham. The country has 40 million barrels of oil in storage and could ramp up production quickly.

Oil prices have leveled off in recent weeks, but with the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program bumping up against a deadline, that could change.

After crashing last year and then hitting several peaks and valleys, oil prices have traded within a relatively narrow range, with WTI bouncing around a bit above and below the $60 per barrel mark, and Brent staying near $64 per barrel. Of course, day-to-day there has been volatility as usual, but oil prices have been stable (relatively speaking) since the end of April. Even the OPEC meeting came and went without so much as a shrug from the oil markets.

But the deadline for the Iran negotiations – ostensibly set for June 30 – is only a week away and the outcome could have broad ramifications for the oil market, both in the immediate aftermath and over the long-term.

If a deal can be agreed to by both sides, Iran could bring a wave of oil production online. Western sanctions have knocked 1.2 million barrels per day offline since 2012. Although estimates vary, Iran might be able to bring 400,000 barrels per day online within a few months, perhaps as much as 700,000 barrels per day by the end of the year, growing to well over 1 million barrels per day sometime in 2016.

Also, Iran has somewhere around 40 million barrels of oil sitting in storage, a lot of which could essentially hit the market as soon as sanctions are lifted.

If news breaks that a deal is in hand, oil prices will sink on the expectation of this future volume, potentially dropping by $5 to $10 per barrel. And as Iran actually does ramp up output over time, and the rest of OPEC opts against cutting back to make room, global supplies will increase. That will keep a lid on future price gains and extend the current period of soft pricing.

Of course, supply and demand will have to balance out over time, and more Iranian crude will force a larger adjustment from U.S. shale, so U.S. oil production could see a deeper contraction.